Seven Parties Win at Least One Seat to European Parliament from Great Britain, Thanks to Proportional Representation

Here are the British results for the European Parliament elections. As the article shows clearly, seven parties won at least one seat to the European Parliament from Great Britain. This is because for these elections, Britain used proportional representation. Thanks to Thomas Jones for the link.

Two conclusions pop right out at you: 1) democracy flourishes under PR, but withers in first-past-the-post, especially where (as in most of the U.S.)gerrymandering becomes an endemic and expected procedure in districting, and 2) Labour and the Tories, watch your front and back: UKIP has already passed you in EU deputies and other “thirds” are coming up on you from behind.

I agree with David Gillespie about PR and healthy political cultures. These numbers though tell us something else important about proportional elections as well. When the turnout is low the most motivated (usually the smallest and sometimes the more extreme) parties win all out of proportion to their actual popular support.

And finally, did Sinn Fein really win a seat outside of Ireland? The article says these results don’t include Northern Ireland.

@Pete: Sinn Fein didn’t run any candidates in Great Britain. They won their one UK seat in Northern Ireland. (They also won three seats in the Republic of Ireland.)

The table is somewhat confusing with regard to the vote results in Northern Ireland. The three parties that won seats in NI (Sinn Fein, Democratic Unionist, Ulster Unionist) have their first preference totals from NI shown in their votes column. But the other parties that ran in NI only aren’t listed in the table at all.